Minerals are essential elements for the growth of all organisms. Dietary minerals can be derived from many source materials, including plants. For example, plant seeds are a rich source of minerals since they contain ions that are complexed with the phosphate groups of phytic acid molecules. These phytate-associated minerals may, in some cases, meet the dietary needs of some species of farmed organisms, such as multi-stomached ruminants. Accordingly, in some cases ruminants require less dietary supplementation with inorganic phosphate and minerals because microorganisms in the rumen produce enzymes that catalyze conversion of phytate (myo-inositol-hexaphosphate) to inositol and inorganic phosphate. In the process, minerals that have been complexed with phytate are released. The majority of species of farmed organisms, however, are unable to efficiently utilize phytate-associated minerals. Thus, for example, in the livestock production of monogastric animals (e.g., pigs, birds, and fish), feed is commonly supplemented with minerals and/or with antibiotic substances that alter the digestive flora environment of the consuming organism to enhance growth rates.
As such, there are many problematic burdens—related to nutrition, ex vivo processing steps, health and medicine, environmental conservation, and resource management—that are associated with an insufficient hydrolysis of phytate in many applications. The following are non-limiting examples of these problems:                1) The supplementation of diets with inorganic minerals is a costly expense.        2) The presence of unhydrolyzed phytate is undesirable and problematic in many ex vivo applications (e.g. by causing the presence of unwanted sludge).        3) The supplementation of diets with antibiotics poses a medical threat to humans and animals alike by increasing the abundance of antibiotic-tolerant pathogens.        4) The discharge of unabsorbed fecal minerals into the environment disrupts and damages the ecosystems of surrounding soils, fish farm waters, and surface waters at large.        5) The valuable nutritional offerings of many potential foodstuffs remain significantly untapped and squandered.        
Many potentially nutritious plants, including particularly their seeds, contain appreciable amounts of nutrients, e.g. phosphate, that are associated with phytate in a manner such that these nutrients are not freely available upon consumption. The unavailability of these nutrients is at least partially overcome by some organisms, including cows and other ruminants that have a sufficient digestive ability—largely derived from the presence of symbiotic life forms in their digestive tracts—to hydrolyze phytate and liberate the associated nutrients. However, the majority of species of farmed animals, including pigs, fish, chickens, turkeys, as well as other non-ruminant organisms including man, are unable to efficiently liberate these nutrients after ingestion.
Consequently, phytate-containing foodstuffs require supplementation with exogenous nutrients and/or with a source of phytase activity in order to amend their deficient nutritional offerings upon consumption by a very large number of species of organisms.
In yet another aspect, the presence of unhydrolyzed phytate leads to problematic consequences in ex vivo processes including—but not limited to—the processing of foodstuffs. In but merely one exemplification, as described in EP0321004-B1 (Vaara et al.), there is a step in the processing of corn and sorghum kernels whereby the hard kernels are steeped in water to soften them. Water-soluble substances that leach out during this process become part of a corn steep liquor, which is concentrated by evaporation. Unhydrolized phytic acid in the corn steep liquor, largely in the form of calcium and magnesium salts, is associated with phosphorus and deposits an undesirable sludge with proteins and metal ions. This sludge is problematic in the evaporation, transportation and storage of the corn steep liquor.
The supplementation of diets with antibiotic substances has many beneficial results in livestock production. For example, in addition to its role as a prophylactic means to ward off disease, the administration of exogenous antibiotics has been shown to increase growth rates by upwards of 3–5%. The mechanism of this action may also involve—in part—an alteration in the digestive flora environment of farmed animals, resulting in a microfloral balance that is more optimal for nutrient absorption.
However, a significant negative effect associated with the overuse of antibiotics is the danger of creating a repository of pathogenic antibiotic-resistant microbial strains. This danger is imminent, and the rise of drug-resistant pathogens in humans has already been linked to the use of antibiotics in livestock. For example, Avoparcin, the antibiotic used in animal feeds, was banned in many places in 1997, and animals are now being given another antibiotic, virginiamycin, which is very similar to the new drug, Synercid®, used to replace vancomycin in human beings. However, studies have already shown that some enterococci in farm animals are resistant to Synercid®, Consequently, undesired tolerance consequences, such as those already seen with Avoparcin and vancomycin, are likely to reoccur no matter what new antibiotics are used as blanket prophylactics for farmed animals. Accordingly, researchers are calling for tighter controls on drug use in the industry.
The increases in growth rates achieved in animals raised on foodstuffs supplemented with the instantly disclosed phytase molecules matches—if not exceeds—those achieved using antibiotics such as, for example, Avoparcin. Accordingly, the instantly disclosed phytase molecules—either alone or in combination with other reagents (including but not limited to enzymes, including proteases)—are serviceable not only in this application (e.g., for increasing the growth rate of farmed animals) but also in other applications where phytate hydrolysis is desirable.
An environmental consequence is that the consumption of phytate-containing foodstuffs by any organism species that is phytase-deficient—regardless of whether the foodstuffs are supplemented with minerals—leads to fecal pollution resulting from the excretion of unabsorbed minerals. This pollution has a negative impact not only on the immediate habitat but consequently also on the surrounding waters. The environmental alterations occur primarily at the bottom of the food chain, and therefore have the potential to permeate upwards and throughout an ecosystem to effect permanent and catastrophic damage—particularly after years of continual pollution. This problem has the potential to manifest itself in any area where concentrated phytate processing occurs—including in vivo (e.g. by animals in areas of livestock production, zoological grounds, wildlife refuges, etc.) and in vitro (e.g. in commercial corn wet milling, ceral steeping processes, and the like) processing steps.
The decision to use exogenously added phytase molecules—whether to fully replace or to augment the use of exogenously administered minerals and/or antibiotics—ultimately needs to pass a test of financial feasibility and cost effectiveness by the user whose livelihood depends on the relevant application, such as livestock production.
Consequently, there is a need for means to achieve efficient and cost effective hydrolysis of phytate in various applications. Particularly, there is a need for means to optimize the hydrolysis of phytate in commercial applications. In a particular aspect, there is a need to optimize commercial treatment methods that improve the nutritional offerings of phytate-containing foodstuffs for consumption by humans and farmed animals.
Phytate occurs as a source of stored phosphorous in virtually all plant feeds (Graf (Ed.), 1986). Phytic acid forms a normal part of the seed in cereals and legumes. It functions to bind dietary minerals that are essential to the new plant as it emerges from the seed. When the phosphate groups of phytic acid are removed by the seed enzyme phytase, the ability to bind metal ions is lost and the minerals become available to the plant. In livestock feed grains, the trace minerals bound by phytic acid are largely unavailable for absorption by monogastric animals, which lack phytase activity.
Although some hydrolysis of phytate occurs in the colon, most phytate passes through the gastrointestinal tract of monogastric animals and is excreted in the manure contributing to fecal phosphate pollution problems in areas of intense livestock production. Inorganic phosphorous released in the colon has an appreciably diminished nutritional value to livestock because inorganic phosphorous is absorbed mostly—if not virtually exclusively—in the small intestine. Thus, an appreciable amount of the nutritionally important dietary minerals in phytate is unavailable to monogastric animals.
In sum, phytate-associated nutrients are comprised of not only phosphate that is covalently linked to phytate, but also other minerals that are chelated by phytate as well. Moreover, upon ingestion, unhydrolyzed phytate may further encounter and become associated with additional minerals. The chelation of minerals may inhibit the activity of enzymes for which these minerals serve as co-factors.
Conversion of phytate to inositol and inorganic phosphorous can be catalyzed by microbial enzymes referred to broadly as phytases. Phytases such as phytase #EC 3.1.3.8 are capable of catalyzing the hydrolysis of myo-inositol hexaphosphate to D-myo-inositol 1,2,4,5,6-pentaphosphate and orthophosphate. Certain fungal phytases reportedly hydrolyze inositol pentaphosphate to tetra-, tri-, and lower phosphates. For example, A. ficuum phytases reportedly produce mixtures of myoinositol di- and mono-phosphates (Ullah, 1988). Phytase-producing microorganisms are comprised of bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis (Powar and Jagannathan, 1982) and Pseudomonas (Cosgrove, 1970); yeasts such as Sacchoromyces cerevisiae (Nayini and Markakis, 1984); and fungi such as Aspergillus terreus (Yamada et al., 1968).
Acid phosphatases are enzymes that catalytically hydrolyze a wide variety of phosphate esters and usually exhibit pH optima below 6.0 (Igarashi and Hollander, 1968). For example, #EC 3.1.3.2 enzymes catalyze the hydrolysis of orthophosphoric monoesters to orthophosphate products. An acid phosphatase has reportedly been purified from A. ficuum. The deglycosylated form of the acid phosphatase has an apparent molecular weight of 32.6 kDa (Ullah et al., 1987).
Phytase and less specific acid phosphatases are produced by the fungus Aspergillus ficuum as extracellular enzymes (Shieh et al., 1969). Ullah reportedly purified a phytase from wild type A. ficuum that had an apparent molecular weight of 61.7 kDA (on SDS-PAGE; as corrected for glycosylation); pH optima at pH 2.5 and pH 5.5; a Km of about 40 μm; and, a specific activity of about 50 U/mg (Ullah, 1988). PCT patent application WO 91/05053 also reportedly discloses isolation and molecular cloning of a phytase from Aspergillus ficuum with pH optima at pH 2.5 and pH 5.5, a Km of about 250 μm, and specific activity of about 100 U/mg protein. Summarily, the specific activity cited for these previously reported microbial enzymes have been approximately in the range of 50–100 U/mg protein.
The possibility of using microbes capable of producing phytase as a feed additive for monogastric animals has been reported previously (U.S. Pat. No. 3,297,548 Shieh and Ware; Nelson et al., 1971). The cost-effectiveness of this approach has been a major limitation for this and other commercial applications. Therefore improved phytase molecules are highly desirable.
Microbial phytases may also reportedly be useful for producing animal feed from certain industrial processes, e.g., wheat and corn waste products. In one aspect, the wet milling process of corn produces glutens sold as animal feeds. The addition of phytase may reportedly improve the nutritional value of the feed product. For example, the use of fungal phytase enzymes and process conditions (t˜50° C. and pH˜5.5) have been reported previously in (e.g. EP 0 321 004). Briefly, in processing soybean meal using traditional steeping methods, i.e., methods without the addition of exogenous phytase enzyme, the presence of unhydrolyzed phytate reportedly renders the meal and wastes unsuitable for feeds used in rearing fish, poultry and other non-ruminants as well as calves fed on milk. Phytase is reportedly useful for improving the nutrient and commercial value of this high protein soy material (see Finase Enzymes by Alko, Rajamäki, Finland). A combination of fungal phytase and a pH 2.5 optimum acid phosphatase form A. niger has been used by Alko, Ltd as an animal feed supplement in their phytic acid degradative product Finas F and Finase S. However, the cost-effectiveness of this approach has remained a major limitation to more widespread use. Thus a cost-effective source of phytase would greatly enhance the value of soybean meals as an animal feed (Shieh et al., 1969).
To solve the problems disclosed, the treatment of foodstuffs with exogenous phytase enzymes has been proposed, but this approach was not been fully optimized, particularly with respect to feasibility and cost efficiency. This optimization requires the consideration that a wide range of applications exists, particularly for large-scale production. For example, there is a wide range of foodstuffs, preparation methods thereof, and species of recipient organisms.
In a particular exemplification, it is appreciated that the manufacture of fish feed pellets requires exposure of ingredients to high temperatures and/or pressure in order to produce pellets that do not dissolve and/or degrade prematurely (e.g. prior to consumption) upon subjection to water. It would thus be desirable for this manufacturing process to obtain additive enzymes that are stable under high temperature and/or pressure conditions. Accordingly it is appreciated that distinct phytases may be differentially preferable or optimal for distinct applications.
It is furthermore recognized that an important way to optimize an enzymatic process is through the modification and improvement of the pivotal catalytic enzyme. For example, a transgenic plant can be formed that is comprised of an expression system for expressing a phytase molecule. It is appreciated that by attempting to improve factors that are not directly related to the activity of the expressed molecule proper, such as the expression level, only a finite—and potentially insufficient—level of optimization may be maximally achieved. Accordingly, there is also a need for obtaining molecules with improved characteristics.